Another hit from Eva Devon! A nearly perfect retelling of Cinderella, it's a wonderful mix of romance, drama and angst.

After Charlotte's mother died, her stepfather decided to keep Charlotte on as a servant in her own house. She loves her stepsister and the other servants, but is constantly abused by her stepfather. On her way to rescue another servant from a debtor's prison, she literally runs into a Duke. Their meeting sparks a mutual interest, but then the Duke shows up at Charlotte's house, hoping to court her stepsister. And so the love story of Charlotte and Rafe begins.

There were a few moments where the story did start to drag a little, but it recovered quickly enough that it never felt like a chore to keep reading. Charlotte does engage in a fair bit of (justifiable) lying, mostly to Rafe, so if that's a problem for anyone, it's best to move on to other books.

This is the third book in the Never a Wallflower Series, a Regency Romance. I loved it! Rafe and Charlotte's story is beautifully written, passionate, and engaging, filled with secret, lies, mystery, twists and turns, and romance. Rafe is handsome, and supportive. Charlotte is beautiful, smart, and strong. They are perfect together. I liked the instant attraction, the slow burn romance, and the sizzling chemistry. The supporting character are interesting. Sasha Higgins has a beautiful voice, very pleasant to listen to. She did an excellent job bringing this story to life. Looking forward to more in the series. If you like Regency Romance, this series is for you. I highly recommend it.

I want to say that I am not a historical girly, but this book hit different on a completely different level. I actually really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the characters are enjoyed the way they interacted on the way that it flowed.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone, as even if you don’t like historical romance is like I don’t this book, just hit something different. It’s generally the same flow as a romance book and it does have some historical elements. But it doesn’t follow the whole historical rules. So I would 100% recommend and I will be reading more of this authors work in the future. There was some bits that I was a little bit sceptical about, but I think the main female lead was strong minded, strong willed and had her own characteristics which followed with her decisions, and I think suited what she would do.

I listen to audiobooks during my long commute. Since I enjoy reading Eva Devon's books was happy to listen to The Duke's Secret Cinderella, narrated by Sasha Higgins.

The heroine of the book, Charlotte Browne, is the stepdaughter of a man who married her widowed mother for her wealth, then wasted her fortune after her death. Charlotte is both servant and prisoner in her family home. Her stepfather targets Charlotte's friends for punishment (her fellow servants and her step-sister) if she steps out of line. It is on her way to bail a fellow servant out of debtor's prison, while pretending to be a lady to do so, that Charlotte meets Rafe Dorchester, Duke of Rockford. The Duke helps Charlotte in her mission.

The villainy of Charlotte's step-father as he tries to manipulate both his daughter and step-daughter leads to several plot twists and revelations. There is plenty of suspense, angst and romantic heat as Charlotte learns more about herself and her family history and falls in love with her Duke. The Duke's Secret Cinderella was a enjoyable re-telling of the Cinderella fairy-tale. The narration was excellent, adding to the suspense and angst of the books which lead to the satisfying HEA.

Thank you to Net Galley and Dreamscape Media for a review copy. My opinions are my own.

Sasha Higgins narrates Eva Devon’s The Duke's Secret Cinderella, Never a Wallflower #3. Since her mother’s death, Charlotte Browne’s become a housemaid, servant, and prisoner in her once-happy family home. Her stepfather has wasted away her mother’s money, accruing debts. With her once prosperous and history-rich home being sold off piece by piece, Charlotte tries to care for the only home she’s known and protect it from her cruel, abusive stepfather. Bold, defiant, fierce, capable, resilient, and passionate, Charlotte meets Rafe Dorchester, Duke of Rockford, while masquerading as a lady to free her friend from debtor’s prison.

Rafe’s family pressures him to marry for heirs to continue the family line. But he longs to marry for love and passion. His grandmother blackmails him into marrying within a specific time by threatening to give his family's hospital away unless he marries a suitable potential duchess from their candidate list. Compassionate, generous, kind, and intelligent, Rafe cares for and helps house children who need care, love, help, and protection from abuse and lack. He intends to use the hospital for his endeavors. But, after trying to save Charlotte’s life from a thief, he becomes fascinated with her and courts Charlotte—who’s not on the list.

Higgins’ narration beautifully captures the Regency period and London setting’s language, bringing Devon’s characters and story to life with her expressive and dynamic narration.
She creates distinct voices with accents appropriate to the characters and setting, using tone, pacing, dialects, emotion, language, and inflections that differentiate the characters, revealing their personalities, feelings, and quirks. Her British accent/voice perfectly suits the characters. Her male character narration is so superb that the novel’s narrators could be both male and female. She wonderfully expresses Rafe and Charlotte’s longing, desire, passion, intimacy, chemistry, moods, and sensations experienced during their intimate scenes.

Devon deftly develops fascinating, fallible, and relatable characters. She builds her characters’ worlds and stories with vivid descriptions, natural-sounding dialogue, light suspense, and family drama. Charlotte and Rafe’s love scenes and interactions are funny, sweet, emotional, intimate, sexy, and steamy, helping develop their connection and evolving their characters and Devon’s multilayered story that examines issues relevant during the regency period—rampant poverty, lack of food, and hunger among the lowborn and poor, and their awful treatment and the corruption in the prison system. Rafe and Charlotte are not so different at the core of their hearts and personalities. While he uses his wealth and status to do what he can to change the world, she does whatever is within her limited power to change her home life and protect the people she loves.

The novel gets a bit serious, emotionally intense, dark, and angsty at times, but Devon nicely balances the romance with the angst and a touch of suspense. She has a beautiful twist in store for us readers. I love how she developed and interweaved it into her story so that it made sense within the context of the novel. It's a lovely way to end the book. The Duke’s Secret Cinderella is a funny, sweet, steamy, angsty, sexy, and well-written historical romance with an entertaining and surprising take on the Cinderella fairy tale, exploring themes of family, identity, changing the world, sacrifice, finding someone who passionately loves you for who you are, and belonging. I highly recommend this audiobook to fans of historical romance, fairy tale retellings, and steamy and angsty romance.

Such a fun and spicy book. Loved the narrators way of telling the story. A really great listen the audio really takes the story to another level

I enjoyed the first two books in this Never a Wallflower series, so was happy to receive an ARC of the audiobook for this third book in the series. Happily, it did not disappoint. This is a Cinderella story with a twist (or two) - and it was interesting to have a wicked stepfather instead of the usual wicked stepmother, as well as a "Cinderella" who knows almost nothing about her true family and background, but is trying to learn. The villain is truly villainous, and the hero and heroine aren't perfect, but they're perfect for each other. There's humor and drama and pretty much everything I look for in a historical romance. The narration of the audiobook is good. It left me hoping there'll be more installments in this series - and knowing I want to read more of Eva Devon's books.
Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for providing a copy for an unbiased review.

I don't normally go for these books but Im so happy I did. I really enjoyed it. I love the regal side of it and the Cinderella retelling. I highly recommend.

My love for Cinderella retellings runs DEEP, and The Duke’s Secret Cinderella has some of my favorite elements:
💖 meet cute reminds you of Ever After (one of the best Cinderella adaptions)
💖 no wicked stepsisters (wicked stepfather) - friendly half sister!

No need to read this series in order - all of the books completely stand alone. I absolutely devoured this book. From the meet cute to the end, I loved every moment.

Charlotte Browne and Rafe Dorchester, Duke of Rockford, meet while Charlotte is on her way to pay for her fellow servant to be released from debtors' prison. It’s the perfect meet cute, and gives all the Ever After vibes! Charlotte has worked as a servant in her stepfather’s house ever since the death of her mother. But in order to save her friend, she dresses as a lady in her stepsister’s clothes, and has to continue the ruse as Rafe steps in to assist her.

I loved Charlotte and Rafe’s sense of social justice, and I do not care how fairytale perfect everything was. I loved it.

I enjoyed this as an audiobook and the narration was wonderful!

Thank you to Dreamscape Media for my review copy! All thoughts are my own.

This was an ok story, but the main character wasn´t working for me.
She was supposed to be smart but couldn´t figure out that she was more then a servant...
I liked the mother and grandmother of the Duke and Francesca the halfsister was also a great character.

Charlotte Browne is an orphan. Her father died when she was very young and she doesn't remember much about him. Her mother remarried and odious man who was after her money. When she died, the family home and all her mother's possessions went to Charlotte's stepfather. He allowed Charlotte to live in the home as a maid to his daughter. When one of the servants that Charlotte thought of as family was thrown in debtor's prison, Charlotte sold the only thing she had left of her mother to raise the funds to get him released. When she is attacked on her way to the prison, she is rescued by Rafe Dorchester, the Duke of Rockford. When asked, she tells him she is a lady, staying with her cousin while her father and uncle are in Scotland. Rafe falls for Lady Charlotte, but what will happen when he finds out she is just a lady's maid.

The Duke's Secret Cinderella is the third book in the Never a Wallflower series, but it is the first I read and I had no problems with the story at all. This was another fun historical romance that is a retelling of Cinderella. Unlike in Cinderella, there is a stepsister, who likes Charlotte, but a stepbrother who is a rogue and a spendthrift. He thinks nothing of Charlotte at all. I really liked that Charlotte was a strong, loyal, independent woman who is willing to do what she needs to in order to keep those she cares about safe. Rafe is a nobleman, but he is not a cynical, alpha-male who gambles and needs money. He cares about others and is hoping to change the social situations that ordinary people find themselves in at the time (orphanages, debtors prison etc.). I do not want to give away the story, but there are some twists along the way, some action and some loving, in a story that I very much enjoyed. In fact, I will be trying to find the previous two audiobooks to listen to them as well. The audiobook was narrated by Sasha Higgins. This is another new narrator to me, and looking at her catalogue of books, she narrates a lot of historical romances. She did an okay job with the male voices, but I found her voice a bit too saccharine, not deep enough. Her accents and female voice were well done. Overall, I enjoyed this story and recommend it.

I listened to this in audio and the hunt continues for a historical romance narrator that doesn’t sound too old to be the heroine and actually makes me enjoy the book. The plot wasn’t that believable either (even though I know they rarely are), but I was just taken out of the story too often.

In traditional Cinderella fashion our heroine lives as a servant in her stepfather’s household. She meets a duke while trying to rescue one of the other servants from jail and he thinks she is a lady. The two keep meeting and fall for each other….. even though her status and stepfather stands in the way.

I really wanted to like this book but both the story and the narration just didn’t do it for me.

Honestly, the audio narrator for this book was not my cup of tea. I found her voice too high pitch and irritating. I think the story was fine but the audio really ruined it for me. I do want to give this book another chance in the future via ebook, however.

Now this was a fun regency Cinderella retelling 🙌

Thank you @netgalley for providing me with the audiobook version.

This was such a gripping story 🙌 I can't remember rading another regency romance other than Bridgerton and I have to say I'll have to read more of those - the men are SUCH gentlemen!! Honestly, I loved the details and you can see how much work the author put into writing the story and research.

So we follow Charolette, our "Cinderella", with a little twist - it's her step-father who's making her life a living hell and her step-sister is the most adorable thing ever (I hope we get her POV!). Not more than a servant, Charolette meets Rafe, the Duke of Rochester and the hottest bachelor, and somehow she accidentally tells him she's a lady. And that's just the very start of the worst misscommuncation in the history of misscommunications. Ever. BUT it didn't annoy me! Quite the oppsite, I think it was quite a well executed misscommunication-trope 🙌

The spice was hot and cute at the same time, never thought I'd ever say that 😂

The only thing that irked me the wrong way was the narrator's voice. She has lovely diction and she did a great job of distinguishing characters but it's quite... childish? Very high and nasaly and it was quite awkward to listen to when it got to the spicy scenes...

Anyways, this was a solid 3.7🌟 read and I'm looking forward to reading more of Eva Devon's books 🙌

I listened to the audiobook while also reading the paperback and what a wonderful companion to have! The narrator is fantastic and really caught the vibe I got from the physical copy. The voice was dead on and really added to my enjoyment of the story.

I’m relatively new diving back into historical romances and having that audio addition was helpful. It’s a huge jump from the more modern, contemporary romances I read but the narrator brought this sexy, fun story to life!

The Duke's Secret Cinderella was just as I imagined it would be. The story was very spot in with the original fairytale with slight adjustments to make it its own story. The narrator did a fantastic job switching between the voices of each character and she kept my attention the entire time. If you’re looking for something similar to the original Cinderella, this book is for you.

Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for the early audiobook.

So, I'm going to be really honest with this one. I requested this because I thought it was going to be SUPER spicy! Honestly, i thought it was going to be a 'bodice ripper'. Just going off the cover. I WAS SO WRONG!

This book was so good. Its all the plot with spice thrown in at appropriate times. I really thoroughly enjoyed this book. From start to finish. I have gone and reserved the first book on libby and I can't wait!!

This is totally a book where you can't judge a book by its cover.

this is my favorite from the never a wallflower series, liked the two leads a lot. I wouldn't mind more but I know Devon is a great writer and will write more series I like

I had to lie down and stare at my ceiling after finishing this Cinderella retelling. Typically when I do, it’s because I’m crying and trying to figure out how I’ll ever recover from such a perfect book. This time?? I just kept whispering “this was SO bad” immobile like a broken timepiece.

I ultimately loved the first two books in this series. To add to it, the secrets/lies trope is like catnip to me, so to say I was excited to pick this up is a gross understatement. Where could it go wrong?

It turns out that I kinda despised this trope when the “reasons” as fickle as thin ice in early springtime are dragged out to a too-late and very underwhelming reveal. Mix in too much page-time given to the villain with a lame comeuppance and a plot twist out of left field that made my eye twitch, to brew the perfect storm for me to actively dislike the entire* experience. (*except grandmama was a gem and Francesca was refreshing)

Audio: 👍🏼👍🏼 (really like)
Narrated by Sasha Higgins

Thank you to the publisher for the advance reader copies via NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.

This one was so good! I love a good Cinderella re telling and this one was perfect! We have charlotte who hasn’t had an easy life and is living as a servant in her own home, sense her mother death. Her stepfather is an awful cruel man but she has made the best out of her situation and has made a family out of the other servants in the house and her stepsister Francesca who is treated as a lady but also haven’t had it easy under her father. With charlotte goes I an adventure to save one of the men who work in her house she runs into Rafe our Duke who mistakes her for a Lady and she goes with the lie and finds her self in a predicament as her and the Duke couldn’t be more perfect for each other and he is determined to have her as his duchess. I loved charlotte as a character she was so positive and funny! She had me laughing a few times! I also loved rafe and his mother and grandmother! This story had great characters, plot line and even some spice! I highly recommend it! I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did a great job! Thank you to dreamscape media for a copy of this audiobook for review out now!